Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning in the US State Department (2009-2011), is President and CEO of the think tank New America, Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and the author of Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family.

How relevant is this to fact that Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the trucking company that fired a driver who left his trailer because he was about to die of hypothermia? What is more interesting to me is how the nationalist mantle is claimed by those who aren't particularly nationalistic. So the opposition Mitchell sets up may be a false one.

Perfect example of the problem. Broadly speaking, the issue of reversing government's role in regulating business is something Democrats and Republicans have cooperated on. The Republicans were more aggressive but the Democrats made a deliberate effort to distance themselves from their FDR / labor-union roots.

The result in 2016 was that many voters wanted neither a standard Republican nor a standard Democrat - Trump had an easier time claiming to fit this description . (not true, but nevermind). The Democrats did their best to avoid the obvious solution, which would be to address the basic issue. Instead all they have are valid but rhetorically ineffective criticisms of their opponents bigotries.

In the last paragraph of the article the author concludes that the right response to the people that voted from Trump is to build a new narrative.

It is not a narrative what needs to be built. What needs to be built are the conditions for people to have a better life, to have jobs with a decent pay, a government that delivers the services it is supposed to deliver and control what it is supposed to control, make the rich pay the taxes they don't pay so the distribution of wealth is more equitative.

Andrés, you have a very valid point with regards to creating a narrative vs. economic conditions; I would consider there are three different conditions that need to be create: economic conditions (better jobs, etc.), political conditions (tolerante cohabitations of all sides, specdially in Congress) and social conditions (where the mentioned"narrative" would come into play. An economic problem if not solved within its sphere becomes a political problem, and if a political problem is not solved becomes a social problem, it is very smart of you to mention that the solution starts in the economic sphere.

Today's nationalistic populism is inextricably linked to nostalgia for a less competitive, less disrupted economy. Globalization had support in the post cold war 1990s internet bubble and the 2000s credit bubble economy, when the % of people who thought they'd gain from globalisation and digitisation was far higher. But in a "software is eating the world" gig, eat what you kill economy, more and more sectors become winner take all. The % of people who can adapt to Silicon Valley startup world levels of disruption and creative destruction is quite small and the % of jobs with guaranteed shelter from global competition, AI, altos and robotics is continually shrinking. On the other hand, the % of human beings who have an inherent right to grow old in the same world they grew up in is precisely zero. The Trump voters who applauded when he said "I love the old days" near to hear these precise words. The world you knew will disappear and you must adapt. The men who think Trump can bring back the muscle build something with your hands jobs (coal, oil roughneck, mfg) need to be told that robots like National Oilwell Varco's Iron Roughneck will replace them and that there's a coming divorce between work and income. This is why Facebook's co-founder proposed a basic income and Finland is experimenting with the same idea. Government's job will be labor market intervention to keep labor scarce and expensive. Otherwise the game is over for all of us, as billionaires like Nick Hanauer and Jeff Green have written. Niall Ferguson (War of the World) and Ben Friedman (The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth) have written about how rising economic insecurity and volatility cause rising hostility to out groups. Such hostility will worsen if governments don't increase their competence at providing economic shock absorbers to the disrupted losers in the globalization game.

I think we have to get away from "pat" academic assessments of the current flux between "globalism" and "nationalism" - there are many different nations and no one analysis is going to fit the motivations or understanding of each different and diverse country. What people have in common is their national identity and their homeland and the "pan globalists" who would denigrate national identity and homeland as some kind of aberration of a failure of intelligence or worse as an expression of racism miss the point entirely and present in their "visions" for globalisation a boring monocultural world, where citizens are denied their cultures; languages; and sense of place in return for a rootless non specific existence in countries which don't recognise them as legitimate citizens as many yearn for the securities and comfort of familiar places; languages, values and communities which are being ripped apart by a globalist agenda, which sees the nation state as a force for evil rather than a structure for stable integrated communities.
Globalists have failed to gain consent from the peoples over whom they wish to dispossess of their sense of place; rule of law and culture. They have (impertinently) imposed a free movement flow mixing cultures, languages, beliefs and values in the naïve assumption that what will coalesce will be a new diverse strong replacement for the nation sate, where "discrimination" will be a thing of the past and national interest will be replaced with a collective interest. Sadly as with most theoretical models this approach was always destined to be a complete and abject failure.
Instead "multiculturalism" manifested itself into parallel communities living distinct and unconnected lives separate from mainstream life and values have not been shared but simply amplified within the strictures of existing cultural norms and values - there are not set of shared values and beliefs, each society has made their own values and these rarely compliment one another, in fact division; animosity; fear and loathing have been the outcome of the great multicultural "globalist" model - aided and abetted by the exploitation of the weak by Global Corporates and the appalling effect of low wages on the western economies as low paid unskilled workers pour into economies in need of cheap labour.
It is not a battle between Globalists and Nationalists - nation states have had years to mature and reach their current state of complexity - globalism puts a bomb under these delicate long developed networks and societies and when they are destroyed the Globalists can't understand why societies become dysfunctional; unhappy and "nationalistic".
The nation state is the home of the human family. From tribes, to nation states. Globalists have no respect for nation states or the sensitivities of cultures and their dreadful social experiments have ruined lives and cultures and how we put these delicate and efficient models back together again following the failure of multi culturalism is the question.
Allowing any number of strangers into your expensive long inherited home who then trash it and claim it as their own would upset anyone - why do Globalists imagine we humans don't have feelings and should be consulted before our freedoms; societies; cultures and national identities are forcefully stripped from us? Globalists are simply fantasists and are completely unreasonable and unfeeling - no wonder it has ended in disaster for them.

Anne-Marie Slaughter believes in a more pragmatic approach towards the movement of raw populism, that triggers a tug of war between globalism and nationalism. She thinks "globalists" have the upper hand and can drag the "nationalists" over to their side, not by force, but persuasion. It is about building "a new narrative of patriotism, culture, connection, and inclusion." Perhaps globalists can afford to be more compassionate towards inclusion and diversity than nationalists, because they tend to be tolerant.
Nationalists reject liberal values and focus narrowly on their politics of identify and chauvinism. In fact Brexit and Trump's win show that economic nationalism is the ulterior motive behind their "revolt in the name of national sovereignty." Neglected by mainstream parties, who have failed to bring prosperity, they fall prey to populists, who resort to divisive language of nationalism - "borders" and "culture." Slogans like - to "take back control" or to put "America first" dominated their campaign agenda. Theirs is a mob democracy - the many versus the few and the us-or-them mentality. There is little room for dissent and an allegedly "rootless cosmopolitan" community in their "connected nation" based on parochialism and nativism.
In recent months the "backlash against globalization" had brought white “Judeo-Christian”, anti-establishment, nation-first parties on both sides of the Atlantic to centre stage. Nationalists resent the tide of globalisation across the world, which is open to free trade - movement of goods, services, capital, labour and technology. Economic uncertainty and weak recovery from the protracted malaise, following the 2008 financial crisis provide an opening for populist and protectionist parties to blame foreign trade and foreign workers for the loss of jobs and the decline of living standards.
The author says "populism means a politics of the people, juxtaposed against a politics of the elites." For decades in America conservatives saw "progressivism" as their "domestic enemy" and they are partly to blame for failing to address the concerns of those, who feel left behind. Today populism is their "new problem." Trump’s election "has little to do with traditional Republican conservatism." He is not a traditional Republican but an opportunist. In fact the withdrawal of his healthcare bill from Congress shows the lack of support within his own party.
The author raises the problems that Trump's supporters and people in his circle like Kellyanne Conway, are facing - "sneering disdain" and "syrupy condescension" from the "left" who they accuse of being "intolerant." The "perceived combination of arrogance and ridicule fans irritation into rage and revenge fantasies." This show of contempt has little to do with political inclination. It is most unfortunate that they are dubbed "racists" or "idiots". But many of them are so obsessed with partisan ideology that they refuse to denounce Trump, who - as a highly divisive figure - does not have the nation's best interests at heart.
That Trump makes no effort to seek national reconciliation and unite the country, and given the dubious circumstances, under which he won the election, distrust in him and criticism will persist. As president he makes disputable claims that shed a light on his temperament and creditability, putting himself constantly in the line of fire. In short he is unfit for the office and has made himself a laughing stock of the international community.
Indeed, the various investigations into the Trump team's links to Russia during the campaign are hanging like a Sword of Damocles over his political fortune. It is true that even if he has to resign one day some of his supporters "will not be going away." Like Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France, populists have charted new ground that needs to be claimed by mainstream political parties, before it expands further.

j. von Hettlingen
Like AMS you use so many words that the problems gets lost.
Why don't you give a figure (%) of the number of immigrants an average western country should admit ?
Is it acceptable to you that in a westen country the Islam takes over and replace fundamental western ( Christian, Jewish, Atheist ) values and laws ?

This is a discussion in labels like: nationalism, globalism, populism, etc. It ignores the hard facts which lay underneath these terms. These are the huge population explosion that is taking place in the world, mainly in Islamic countries. A religion which is not compatible with the western culture. Example: In Africa live 1200 million people. The next 35 years they will grow by 700 million.
Many like to migrate to the European Union ( 500 million) and other western countries.
Similar population growth is taking place in many other countries in the Middle East and in Asia.
The effect of all this is hard to comprehend.
Germany admitted two years ago 1 million immigrants but had to stop the flow. It was a generous measure and great for the lucky ones. But what contibruted it to solving the problems in a world growing by 2 million people per week ? Is closing borders, what populists want, not understandable ?

A brillant article; it shades a lot of light into the
bitterest feelings of both sides. Globalization, as flawed as it is or might be, it is here to stay, and cannot be reverted. The quote included “Stop calling us racists. Stop calling us idiots. We aren’t. Listen to us when we try to tell you why we aren’t. Oh, and stop making fun of us.” has the, or at least one magic bullet to improve this confrontation of ideas "LISTEN TO US", listening and discussing may lead to a way out for both sides... and no side shouldm make fun of the other. However, while Kelleyanne might feel "the smarmy, indulgent niceness of people who think they’re better than you" we all around the world feel the desiere to belittle everybody and his or her brother by the tweets of a President that loves tha phrase "Noone does (says, acts, writes -pick a verb) this better than me" trying to position himself as the single owner and master of the ultimate truth in the universe. The "deplorable phrase" is indeed "deplorable" on its own, because it indeed turned "irritation into rage and revenge fantasies". Globalization did hurt the heart and soul of the USA and of the world, leaving many behind, but are businessmen and corporations, such as those defended and supported by Trump, the ones who turned globalization into a weapon against the weak, the poor, the less fit and the less educated.

Another hopelessly ignorant wonk. There have been a number of good articles lately that point out the meat of the issue that people like AMS are trying to avoid: nationalism is a form of accountability. In this sense, nationalism is a very liberal idea. It is this accountability that the progressive elites are so afraid of, which causes them to call their opposition "populism", "xenophobia", "racism", "right-wing", "nazi-ism", "tribalism" etc.. The main point whether you are an Obamacare supporter or a Europhile is to avoid the accountability that would come with local control. If you want to look at the numbers behind it there are some plainly evident issues with costs in the American health system - things like wildly inflated prices for imaging technologies that are no longer expensive attempting to balance under-compensation for primary care, and hospital billing which is a virtual random number generator. Obamacare avoided all these real issues, and played a game of equating health insurance with health care that successfully centralized more administration, but that has generated more regions with no viable health system. We can ignore that result since those people are "deplorable" anyway.

The EU bureaucracy has spent years trying to tell the British how to make their sausage, but never thought they needed to address border security. That is an outrageous failure, not because they didn't have the authority to do so, but because they chose to focus on controlling irrelevant trivia instead.

In the end Brexit was inevitable not because of this or that provision in a particular rule, but because the British tradition of government representatives listening to their constituents is incompatible with the structure of the EU.

Do we need 'to build a new narrative of patriotism, culture, connection, and inclusion?' No. A narrative is a story. An effective narrative so gripping that we willingly forget reality and suspend disbelief. Trump's 'The Apprentice' had a narrative about a fatherly billionaire who brings together young people of different backgrounds and chooses one of them to rise up into great wealth. This narrative had nothing to do with what was actually going on in the American economy and, in time for the market crash, changed tack to become an utterly vacuous 'Celebrity Apprentice'. What was the outcome of this narrative of 'patriotism, culture, connection and inclusion'? Trump won the Republican nomination and then the White House despite having far worse credentials than Ross Perot.

There is a notion that the US is so wealthy that it doesn't need to bother about reality. It can just choose among 'narratives'. Thus, politics is just a beauty contest. It is still very shocking to most of us that Trump could have, more by luck than cunning, hit upon genuine economic grievances and cashed in at the ballot box. Hilary was far better placed to know about and publicise these genuine problems and propose credible changes. Probably, she was advised not to muddy up her 'narrative' by focusing on the structural problems facing disenfranchised 'deplorables'.
There is a lesson here. Leave 'narratives' to Netflix. Alethic discourse alone can drive deliberative democracy.

My big problem with globalization and the "Cosmopolitan Elites" who practice it and I suspect the working class as a group is they have shafted the working class in the name of some vision of the world that exists only in their own minds. The convergence of wages is not going to shaft think tank intellectuals, corporate or government leaders it is the working class that is taking it in the shorts. Wage convergence is a wonderful thing in China or Mexico their wages have gone up relatively speaking. But for those of us in the Working class industrialized world as our jobs left for the 3rd world our wages went straight down the sewer. But our cost of living did not go anywhere but up. Rent has not gone any direction but up in 40 years wages haven't gone anywhere but down effectively. We are supposed to support your wonderful vision of a global order why??? So we can get shafted for vision we don't share and won't benefit from??? The globalists scream that it is the moral thing to do! But you know it is those of in the working class whose interests are sacrificed by the elites in the name of globalization not theirs. You know we are tired of being sodomized in the name of globalization. You know if you folks want globalization so bad sacrifice your interests for a change not OURS!!!!

*still* not mentioned:
In the current neoliberal age (1970s thru present), both conservatives and centrist-economic-liberals united to defeat progressives, who favored regulation and redistribution. The alliance of conservatives and centrist-economic-liberals won. They, and we all, reap what they sow.

Sovereignty is defined by borders and currency. A loss of borders is a loss of sovereignty. If you lose your sovereignty you lose control of your economy, anybody can walk in and just as easily take something out - and if you relinquish your currency(an EU-EZ thing) then you face the possibility of uncontrollable debt. It is quite rational to be concerned about these issues which means policy that undermines them will face continued opposition. Unfortunately for those who want to remove borders completely the outcome for a serious number of citizens is seen as negative so it is QED. Trust in a relationship with some remote authority by definition not locally elected to do the right thing has been destroyed

Polarity results and the ballot outcome is narrow either way, it is effectively a identity crisis with little greyscale. Those who still trust and those who no longer trust and it cannot get much more fundamental than that. Either way those that win feel justified, those that lose feel robbed of their identity

Wilders did not lose; he actually got more votes than the previous elections but not enough to win outright. I fully agree with Mitchell's interpretation “revolt in the name of national sovereignty” however, planet earth is littered with ghost towns, villages and cities that once housed communities who felt they could make it on their own and then got overtaken or wiped out by the "invaders" (colonialists)!

RLB, regarding your comment about Trump not winning the popular votes, it is the same as not allowing the British expatriates of voting in the Brexit referendum! Democracy is what it is, it can be and has been manipulated by the many, thus the impasse everyone is in.

RLC, I am a globalist, thus my statement about ghost towns, I agree with the statement of Mitchell in the sense that it was the cause of the problem rather than anything else. Trump can say whatever he wishes, whether he will be able to achieve much, in reality, it is to be seen, very doubtful though.

If Wilders did not lose because he increased the number of votes (he did not lose in comparison to him), what is your opinion about Trump having less popular votes than many Republicans, and of the loser of the election. You remind me of Churchill who said "I only believe in statistics that I doctored mysel"

M M the USA is a land made up of people from all over the world, who have family and friends around the world, maybe those ghost towns where populated with narrow minded people who did not see people coming to share their land as an asset to prosper their land, maybe they concentrated more in the "purity" of their race or their fear of the unknown.

The US moved quickly from isolationism to a robust internationalism during WW II because of the success of US arms. And it has moved towards back towards isolationism since 2003 because of the failure of US arms in the Middle East. The simple fact is that no narrative can justify bad policy and bad practice, or disguise failure. Internationalists need to be more competent; success sells itself.

MP,
Thanks for the HBR reference; it localizes the discussion to the US and nicely grounds the A-MS article. Such apt links are a contribution to PS and should be encouraged.

Still, neither text even hinted at the underlying question of how human culture as psychologically internalized might evolve beyond tribal nationalism and a naive and frustrated cowboy capitalism (the contradictions of which Trump-types may suffer, perhaps as cognitive dissonance). Neither of these 'self constructions' can conceivably be stable terminal states of human nature across future millennia, when well-being may be measured in a lack of Cs rather than ISM PMIs.

This excellent article very much sums up a nationalist perspective on progressive attitudes that contributed to the electoral schism of 2016 and they are good points. But also we need take into account the prevailing moral basis of outraged white privilege that closed the ears of the nationalist base to anyone trying to develop a dilalogue of common good and American identity. For example, individuals who hated President Obama for his race hated Obamacare, even though a number of them supported the ACA, which was the same thing. If there is an obligation for Progressives to reach out, there is an equal obligation among regressives to not turn away.

I agree with your opinions, I come from a country, Bolivia, where politics have divided us even more into the "indians" and "semi-indians" (for a lack of a better term, the mixed ones) boiling hate and resentment on both sides, even among kids! Using love to revive hate, using nationalisim to ellicite feelings of hate and despise is a crime. Here in Bolivia, in the USA, and any where and from any tendency left or right! I would like to create a High Council with all world religious leaders from every religion to hold these leaders accountable of their manipulative actions...

I am astonished at Anne-Marie Slaughter's shifting and sliding. The fact that she has approvingly provided to a link to a faux-erudite article in the American Conservative, and generously quoted from it, only confirms about what I have long believed about "public intellectuals" (whether conservative or liberal/progressive) in my adoptive country, the United States. That in the end they will rush to conform to the prevailing power structure.
Both Slaughter from the liberal end and Mitchell from the conservative end are searching frantically to make sense of events. That's fine. But look a little further and you see that what they are really doing is rationalizing these trends as inevitable and admirable, and aligning themselves with them.

HYPHENATION V HOMELANDS
Everyone in America is hyphenated.
Everyone in Europe has a homeland.
Migration Unlimited resulted in energies unleashed - the migrants were all leaving homelands to create their dreams.
Homeland had zoned them into tiny geographic identifiers - and resulted in linguistic jingoism or religious sectarianism.
With ONE LANGUAGE hyphenated Americans built a dreamland - beyond their individualized identities.

In stereotyping the hyphenated Americans, Media has destroyed the narrative that built The dream.
Media is supposed to be templates of bipartisanship, templates that distilled truth.
Mercifully this Media of the pre-Internet Age will soon be an anachronism.
Social Media hopefully will destroy the Negative Narrative that "Fake Media" had built up.

Succees of the American dream had a few key DNA elements - that Fake Media had destroyed.
When hyphenated Americans built The Greatest Nation on the Planet - the raw materials were sourced GLOBALLY.
Europeans rooted to their homelands meanwhile indulged in religious sectarianism and linguistic jingoism.
America Australia Canada have created a template - that has saved millions of Migrants, escaping from homelands.
The American Affairs perhaps should appropriately be respected if it deciphered this DNA element, that has been REAL SALVATION.
THE-CITY-ON-THE-HILL is a tribute to One Language overcoming - Religious Sectarianism and Linguistic Jingoism of The Homelands.
The American Affairs perhaps be renamed The Anglosphere Affairs.

Hyphenation harnessed energies of Migrants - escaping Europe's homelands.
America - and The Anglosphere - became the Success Template of Globalisation.
Rootedness to HomeLands prevented assimilation - making Globalization impossible.
Religious Sectarianism and Linguistic Jingoism - were overcome with One Language.
The Template that needs emulation is not The Homeland version but The Hyphenated version.

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